Art-full Memory Book
Mom Sherry Frick of Baltimore says her son Christopher's preschool teacher, Andrea Gambardella, loved receiving this book of watercolors from the entire class. Ms. Gambardella seconds that emotion: "It's always nicest to get memory gifts from the students." To make the book, the kids created watercolor paintings on heavy pieces of paper that were then trimmed down to about 8 1/2 by 11 inches. Each child glued a wallet-size photo of himself or herself to the middle of his or her painting and signed (or doodled) his or her name on the back. A parent bound the artwork together by punching a row of holes down the side, threading a pretty ribbon through the pages, and adding a cover that identified the class and the year.

A Night at the Movies
We trust Alisa Mason, a mom of two from Maryville, Tennessee, to know what teachers want -- she's a second-grade teacher herself! "I have so many apple pins," Alisa laughs. "I mean, it's very sweet. It really is. But it's nice to get a gift which acknowledges that you have a life outside of school -- that you need downtime."

That's why she and her own kids, Phillip, a fifth grader, and Berkley, a preschooler, have created the Night at the Movies Fun Pack for their teachers. They start with a plastic bowl, personalize it with the teacher's name in puffy paint, then fill the bowl with microwave popcorn, concession-size candy bars, and a gift certificate to a local video rental store. "The teachers are always so excited about it," Alisa says. "In fact, lots of them have turned around and given the same thing to their own children's teachers."